Turkey hunters favor spring over fall

Spring gobbler season has grown more popular than the fall season in which hunters can shoot male or female turkeys.

The shift toward the spring season began after 2001, when nearly the same number of turkey hunters turned out in spring and fall.

Last year, more than 200,000 hunters ventured into the woods during the spring of 2012 compared to fewer than 150,000 hunters who participated fall turkey hunts.

Harvests, too, have dropped from a peak of about 50,000 turkeys in the fall and spring of 2001. Hunters took fewer than 15,000 turkeys in the fall of 2011, but bagged more than 35,000 that spring.

Mary Jo Casalena, a biologist for the Pennsylvania Game Commission, said in an email that longer seasons for archery deer hunters might have reduced the numbers of turkey hunters in the fall.

Surveys show that hunters are busy in the fall, Casalena said, whereas spring is a nice time to enjoy the woods and performances of the male gobblers.

"Once a hunter hears the gobble of a tom and witnesses it strutting, the beauty and excitement are spellbinding and the hunter is hooked," she said.

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